NORTH COUNTY  Lines were extra long and many customers said they were extra frustrated Monday at Department of Motor Vehicles offices in Oceanside and Poway.

The two offices were swamped because they were handling hundreds of customers that would normally use the Escondido DMV office, which recently lost its lease over a parking dispute. Monday was the first day of an estimated nine-month closure of that office.

“It’s more gas and it’s more time,” Escondido resident Jesse Lopez said while sitting in the packed waiting area of the Poway DMV.

Claudia Maddux, another customer waiting in Poway, said closing the Escondido DMV made no sense.

“There’s so many people who use that office that they should have kept it open,” she said. “The sign says I have a 98-minute wait.”

Brianna Martinez said the line was wrapped all the way around the Oceanside DMV when it opened at 7 a.m. Monday. Three hours later, Martinez and her father, Javier, were waiting in a line that still trickled outside the door.

“One reason it takes so long is that they are really disorganized and the service is horrible,” Javier Martinez said.

Managers of the local offices said they were prohibited from estimating how much longer the lines were on Monday than a typical day. They deferred all questions to DMV officials in Sacramento.

Jan Mendoza, a DMV spokeswoman, said that Oceanside and Poway offices did have more customers Monday but that she couldn’t be more specific.

“I can’t give you hard numbers, but I can say they’re busier,” she said.

Keith Jacobsen, a security guard hired by the DMV to turn people away from the closed Escondido DMV on Monday, said he sent 91 people elsewhere between 7 and 9 a.m.

And that number doesn’t include people who went to other offices after learning about the closure in local media or on the DMV website.

Jacobsen said fellow security guards at the Oceanside office told him by phone that more than 200 people were waiting there today. He also said the DMV plans to hire more security guards in Oceanside to cope with larger crowds.

But not everyone was frustrated Monday.

Escondido resident Matthew Gilbert said he was taking the hassle of driving to the Oceanside office in stride.

“It’s no big deal because I had the day off,” Gilbert said while sitting in the crowded Oceanside waiting room. “I’ve already accepted I’m going to waste three hours of my life today at the DMV, so it doesn’t really matter where I do that.”

Outside the Escondido office, Juan Rodriguez said the surprising news that the office was closed wouldn’t ruin his day.

“I was doing a license renewal, but I’m not due until July,” he said. “This will give me a chance to make an appointment.”

DMV officials have been urging people to make appointments online since they announced in March that the Escondido office — on Escondido Boulevard just south of Mission Avenue — would close.

The DMV also began opening one hour earlier May 1 at the Oceanside, Poway and Temecula offices. Those offices are now open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays.

And Mendoza said they also have more staff because most of the employees from the Escondido DMV transferred to one of the three offices.

A new Escondido office isn’t expected to open for at least nine months, DMV officials have said. Long-term, the DMV hopes to open a much larger and more modern office in Escondido in summer 2015.

Plans call for 29,900 square feet, compared to the closed office’s 12,226 square feet. The additional space would allow areas for employee training and a special area for vehicle dealers to conduct business.

The Oceanside office is 14 miles from Escondido at 4005 Plaza Drive, Poway is 15 miles away at 13461 Community Road, and Temecula is 30 miles away at 27851 Diaz Road.